Ungalagl'imbo Yakho Ngopoyiyana
by pinkswallowsun
Summary: "You know, sometimes I wonder if he might take some notice of me if I turned myself into one of his adoring 25 year olds," she sighs miserably, and before you can halt her she's continuing, all of her insecurities flowing out of her at once.' One shot.


**Ungalahl'imbo yakho ngopoyiyana.**

**Xhosa**

'**Do not throw away what is valuable for what is worthless.'**

"_I don't know if I can do this anymore."_

You don't know quite what to say to that. You've suspected that a breakdown of sorts was on its way for a while now, suspected that she was going to hit rock bottom sometime soon, going to be forced to admit to something she's previously avoided like the plague. How oblivious does she think you are? You've known how she feels since the very first time you saw them together, saw how perfectly the pair of them seem to fit, and you've long since first suspected that he feels exactly the same way about her. But of course, there's going to be no convincing her of that, not now. No matter how hard you try, you'll never make her see it in the same light as the rest of the planet.

"Nikki…" you sigh wearily down the phone line, not entirely sure how to respond. It's late, really late, and to be perfectly honest you only bothered picking up your phone because you're on call tonight and you thought she was a DI with a case for you. You're glad now that you did of course; she's hardly said anything to you yet, but already you're getting the impression that she desperately needs someone to talk all this through with, someone to attempt to reason with her just a little. She needs you, more than she knows, and there's no way in hell you're letting her down in her hour of need.

"Nikki, don't be stupid," you tell her gently, only hoping she's not so tired she can't think straight, has it in her mind that you're the one being stupid, the one who isn't seeing this rationally. You say 'this' like you know what her apparent loss of self-control is about, but you don't, not really, you're just guessing. But you always could read her like a book, even over the phone, and you're almost certain you're right. Let's face it; what else could all this be about? She's not the sort to break down in tears over nothing.

"_I'm not being bloody stupid!"_ she sobs hysterically, and you reach the verdict that she's definitely tired beyond the point of sense. _"I just can't do this anymore, don't you understand? I can't stand back and watch him so happy with her anymore, I can't keep on pretending I'm pleased for him when I wish they have a huge row and break up forever with every bone in my body! And what sort of person does that make me? I'm supposed to be his best friend and yet I want him to be heart broken, I want him to hurt, to lose the most important person in his life and go back to that bloody bachelor existence he hates so much…"_

"But that doesn't make you a bad person, Niks," you try to tell her. At which she falls quiet, and if you concentrate hard enough, you can just see her curled up on the end of her sofa, her face stained with tears of anguish and her features twisting into a definite frown.

"_Exactly how…?" _she begins, but youcut her off before she has a chance to finish, determined that she's going to see this your way, fall right into your carefully laid trap.

"Because what's important here isn't that you want Harry to break up with Francesca," you tell her gently. "It's why you want him to."

And it's that point at which she goes horribly quiet, still, the soft, irregular sobs which come hand in hand with her breathing the only thing which assures you she hasn't dropped the phone.

"Why is it that you want Harry to break up with Francesca, Niks?" you press, knowing you're upsetting her but at the same time knowing that this is for her own good, this is the acceptance stage which needs to be conquered if she is to even begin to sort through the tangled mess which is her feelings for Harry Cunningham right now. "Come on, Nikki. You need to say it. Not only to me, but to yourself. You need to admit to it, properly. I'm not going to tell anyone."

There's a slight pause, the phone line goes quiet but that doesn't worry you. You know that she's psyching herself up, preparing herself to make a confession worth a thousand words. A confession of something which she's denied for so long, avoided, always known but refused to address. And that's going to take some courage, for sure.

"_Because I love him,"_ she admits finally, quietly, the calmness of her tone making you all the more certain that she's known this all along. _"Because, I… I love him, and I always have, and… and I want to be everything she is to him, everything I'm not. He's always telling me I'm his best friend but I don't want that anymore, I want to be his girlfriend, his soul mate, I want to be her! But I can't be her, no matter how hard I try. He's had so many girlfriends over the years, but never once has he looked at me like that, not once! And each time he broke up with one of his long line of only half-serious flings I allowed myself to believe that maybe this time it would work out, maybe this time he would see me like that, give me a chance. And then one day he did, one day we arranged to go out on a date I thought that was it, thought it was my chance to show him how perfect we could be together. But it all went wrong; we never even made it to the date. And ever since then it's like he doesn't even notice me as a woman anymore, not in quite the same way. As a best friend, maybe, but he's never seen me like that again, never given me a chance. And now he never will. Now he's got Francesca, I'm never going to get a chance, am I? So there's no point making a fool of myself and admitting to it, because it's never going to happen! And I just don't know why I'm bothering anymore, don't know why there's still a part of me that believes it might happen. Because it won't now, it can't. Not ever."_

_**I stare at my reflection in the mirror:**_

_**"Why am I doing this to myself?"**_

_**Losing my mind on a tiny error,**_

_**I nearly left the real me on the shelf.**_

"But Niks, they've only been together for…" you do the maths quickly in your head, counting back the weeks to that first depressed phone call, the one in which she told you about Harry's new girlfriend in a flat, emotionless voice, telling you everything you possibly needed to know just like that. "10 weeks?" you conclude. "That's not even 3 months."

"_But that's a whole two weeks longer than Harry's last 'serious' relationship lasted!" _she protests sadly._ "And this Francesca, she's perfect for him; really, really perfect. She's young, she's pretty, she works nice, normal, sociable hours…"_

"Nikki, you and Harry have the same job, he's hardly going to pick bones about your working hours!" you practically laugh, knowing that's not what she needs right now but her suggestion seems so completely absurd to you that you can't quite help yourself. "Take it from me: relationships with someone in a similar job to you actually work better, not worse. At least they understand when you have to leave for work at 4 in the morning unexpectedly- chances are, they have to, too."

"…_She's kind, she's generous, she's not a screwed up workaholic…"_

"Niks, you're not screwed up," you sigh now; somehow you had known this was going to come up. "You've had a rougher time of it than most, yes, but you're far from screwed up. And Harry didn't exactly have the easiest childhood either, did he, that's another thing you two have in common. He can talk to you about losing a parent and know you'll understand how he feels, know you won't say the wrong thing, jump to conclusions. Francesca can't do that for him, can she?"

"_But she doesn't need to, she's perfect the way she is!"_ she insists now, the despair in her voice growing by the minute. You want to rush round there and pull her into a hug, to hold her close like you used to and promise her that it's all going to be OK, that this thing with Francesca won't last and sooner or later Harry will come to his senses and confess his undying love for her and she's more perfect than anybody else will ever be, even Francesca. But you can't. Life doesn't work the way it does in fairy tales, and apart from anything else, it's a hell of a long way to hers. Not for the first time, you wish she never left.

"_You know, sometimes I wonder if he might take some notice of me if I turned myself into one of his adoring 25 year olds,"_ she sighs miserably, and before you can halt her she's continuing, all her insecurities and fears flowing out of her at once and leaving her practically inconsolable. _"The only women he seems to take any notice of are all half my age, positively slut-ish, cake themselves in make-up and come across as thick, giggling idiots!"_

"Maybe he's going through a mid-life crisis," you suggest, hoping to lighten her mood a little. "I know someone else stuck in the middle of one of those at the moment." The less that's said about the surfboard currently propped up against the wall of your kitchen and what happened when a certain someone tried to remember how to use it last weekend, the better.

"_Or maybe I should just take a leaf out of their book,"_ she ponders, only half serious, at least, you hope. _"Maybe if I…"_

"Nikki, no," you tell her firmly. "Listen to me, nothing in life is worth losing yourself for, OK? Nothing. I didn't spend years of my life teaching you everything there is to know about pathology for you to throw it all away for the sake of a guy…"

"_But what's the point?"_ she sobs now, frustrated, angry, desperate. _"What's the point in being successful if I can't be happy? What's the point in it all if I'm going to die alone, unwanted, unloved? What's the point in it all if I can't have a family, can't give someone else everything I missed out on as a child? What's the point in it all if I can't have the one thing I want more than anything else in the world?"_

_**Don't lose who you are in the blur of the stars.**_

_**Seeing is deceiving, dreaming is believing,**_

_**It's okay not to be okay.**_

"Because you wouldn't be you, Nikki," you tell her softly, only hoping she hears you, gets your point. "Because you are you and you are brilliant, amazing, beautiful, and don't you ever change that for anyone, OK? You don't want to be one of his adoring 25 year olds, not really, you just want him. You don't want him in that capacity, you want him as so much more, and so you wouldn't be happy, not really. You can't change who you are for love Niks, if he loves you then he'll love you as you are, as you, not pretending to be someone you're not. And sooner or later, Harry's going to realize that adoring 25 year olds like Francesca, however perfect they might seem to you, are just not long-term-relationship material. Trust me, he will. You're not seeing this straight, Niks, you're not seeing what I see when I see the pair of you together because you take it for granted, to you it's just how the two of you are. But take it from me, Niks, when Harry realizes he finally wants to grow up, he's going to start looking for love in the right places, not the wrong. And when that happens, you promise me you won't hold back, OK? Make the first move if you have to, suggest you go out for a drink together…"

"_We do that anyway, you know we do…"_

"So what? Start off subtly, play it like you did when you first arranged that date that never happened, like you would have done had it gone ahead. Take it slowly, but believe you've got a chance Niks, because you have, I promise you. But if you go in there believing he's never going to see you in that light then it's never going to happen, you understand? You've got to be confident, in control, you've got to let him know you're into him without scaring him off. Come on Niks, I thought you were good at this? I didn't waste all that time in Jo'burg just teaching you about facial reconstructions, did I? I thought I gave you some basic life skills, too?"

She giggles now, just a little, but that slight change in her mood is such a relief that suddenly you feel lighter, freer, calmer.

"_You're not seriously telling me how to chat up my best friend, are you?"_

"You bet I am. Now come on, it's 3 in the bloody morning over here, you know," you tell her, mock annoyance in your voice, hoping you've done enough for now, for tonight. "We'll talk tomorrow, OK? But for now, don't worry. It won't last, I promise you. It won't last."

"And what if it does?" she asks, her voice so weak and vulnerable she sounds like a small lost child.

"Then I'll borrow Callum's webcam and we'll have another chat, come up with a plan B, along with lots of chocolate and alcohol and remind ourselves that's it's OK to have a good cry once in a while," you decide. "But we'll worry about that when it happens. If it happens. Now come on, you need to get some sleep, or else you're going to be shattered tomorrow."

"_Sara?"_

"Hmm?"

"I'm sorry," she says with feeling and you roll your eyes despite her not being able to see it. You just knew that would be coming, sooner or later.

"Don't be," you tell her softly. "It's fine, really. That's what I'm here for, OK? Always."

_**Sometimes it's hard to follow your heart.**_

_**But tears don't mean you're losing, everybody's bruising,**_

_**There's nothing wrong with who you are.**_

_**Who you are, Jessie J**_

**Eid prezzie for you all if you celebrate it, and if not then have it anyway :) Couldn't sleep and then that song came into my head, had this idea and thought I might as well write it down. Also a tribute to Amanda Lane (Sara in the South Africa episode) because she's awesome and I've been giving Sara a bit of a rough time in Conclusions in Cape Town recently :S And because the TV series she directed in SA is just pure genius :) **

**Reviews would be just amazing :) and please do let me know who you thought it was on the phone to Nikki at the beginning , and if you were wrong, when you realized it was actually Sara :) I have to admit I was doing my best to confuse you, but I think I'm yet to outsmart you clever people :P **

**Hope you enjoyed, and any suggestions/requests welcome!**

**Love Flossie xxx**


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